On record – Aurora Trio: Crépuscule (EM Records)

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Alwyn Two Folk Tunes (1936). Crépuscule (1955). Naïades (1971)
Bax Elegiac Trio (1916)
Lewis Divertimento (1982)
Lipkin Trio (1982)
Patterson Canonic Lullaby (2016)
Rawsthorne Suite (1968)

Aurora Trio [Emma Halnan (flute), Jordan Sian (viola), Heather Wrighton (harp)]

EM Records EMRCD069 [76’52”]

Producer Tom Hammond
Engineer John Croft

Recorded 15-16 February, 13 August 2020 at St John the Evangelist, Oxford

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The Aurora Trio makes its debut for EM Records in a collection of British music featuring flute, viola and harp that spans exactly 100 years and encompasses a variety of approaches with regards to the combining of these distinct yet undeniably complementary instruments.

What’s the music like?

If not the most elaborate of his numerous works for ensemble, Arnold Bax’s Elegiac Trio is among his most affecting as an in-memoriam for those friends who died in the course of the Easter Uprising in Ireland. Although the overall mood rarely moves far from that implied by the title, the undulating emotion filtering through the textural ‘weave’ proves as subtle as it is elusive. Scored for just flute and harp, William Alwyn’s Naïades unfolds on a larger scale and inhabits a wider range of expression as it evokes both the eponymous spirits of antiquity and the environs of the Suffolk village of Blythburgh where it was written, while also being    a ‘fantasy sonata’ whose instruments interact with more than a little improvisatory freedom.

By contrast, the Suite that Alan Rawsthorne wrote for the Robles Trio is typical of his later music in its harmonic astringency and oblique while never abstruse tonal follow-through. A highly personal use of serial elements underpins the elegant opening Andantino as surely as it does a graceful, intermezzo-like Allegretto then the more demonstrative Allegro vigoroso. All these other works are here receiving their first recordings. Alwyn’s Crépuscule for harp offers a foretaste of that masterly concerto Lyra Angelica in its ethereal poise, whereas his Two Folk Tunes emerges as an appealingly contrasted duo – viola and harp as ruminatively combined in Meditation as they are animatedly juxtaposed in Who’ll buy my besoms?

The highlight is undoubtedly the Trio by Malcolm Lipkin, a composer yet to receive his due and who, as the present work affirms, was unafraid to elide between tradition and innovation with strikingly personal results – whether in the terse emotional contrasts of its Variations, tense and increasingly soulful inwardness of its Intermezzo or purposeful onward progress of a Finale whose impetus subsides towards the pensively fatalistic coda. Canonic Lullaby has Paul Patterson bring flute and harp into limpid accord, while Paul Lewis’s Divertimento puts all three instruments through their paces in a lively March, before embracing them in the lyrical Love Song then cordially sending them on their way in the nonchalant Waltz.

Does it all work?

Yes, given the relative stylistic range of the music featured and, moreover the quality of these performances. Care has evidently been taken to assemble the eight works into a cohesive and satisfying sequence such as this ensemble might tackle at one of its recitals, and which flows well as an overall programme. The playing leaves nothing to be desired in terms of accuracy, while the relative personality of each composer cannot be gainsaid. Ideally the release would encourage composers from the middle and younger generations to write for this combination.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The recording is excellent, with the frequently awkward balance between instruments expertly judged, and there are detailed annotations on both the works and their composers. It all adds up to a worthwhile release which deserves to be followed up, hopefully on this label.

Listen & Buy

You can discover more about this release and listen to clips at the EM Records website, where you can also purchase the recording. For more on the Aurora trio, you can visit their website

In concert – BCMG: Nights

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Cage The Perilous Night (1944)
Woolrich Watermark (2010)
Bray Midnight Interludes (2010)
Crumb Four Nocturnes (Night Music II) (1964)
Anderson Capriccio (2017); Sensation – Nuits (2015/16)
Jia Ripples in Spacetime II (2017)

Members of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group [Mark O’Brien (clarinets), Colette Overdijk (violin), Ulrich Heinen (cello) John Reid (piano)]

Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space, Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Friday 12 November 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

This recital by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group promised ‘‘An evening of starlight-inspired music’’, the environs of Jennifer Blackwell Performance Space – part of the recently completed refurbishment of Symphony Hall’s main foyers – showcasing a programme which ranged over 75 years of creativity. The attraction of Ice Skate Birmingham provided a scenic backdrop, and if the reflection from a repeating promo-video for B:Music proved on occasion distracting, it never drew attention away from the music heard or those musicians playing it.

John Cage may have been at emotional and aesthetic crossroads at the time of The Perilous Night, but its deft sequence of vignettes – obliquely inspired by Irish folktales – finds him at his most focussed and engaging when writing for prepared piano. It certainly drew a lively response from John Reid, who characterized the pieces with great delicacy but also a rigour which prevented them from sounding decorous. Cage later undertook more ambitious works in the medium, yet without recapturing the elegance and inquisitiveness demonstrated here.

More metaphysical matters are addressed by John Woolrich in Watermark, its imaginative interplay for bass clarinet and violin likened to ‘‘Planets revolving around the same sun’’ and whose juxtaposing same or similar material accrues palpable momentum before its dispersal. One of Charlotte Bray’s most notable scores is her song-cycle Midnight Closes after Thomas Hardy, and Midnight Interludes draws on the same texts for three miniatures that summoned a quizzical and sometimes even brusque response from Mark O’Brien and Ulrich Heinen. 

When George Crumb wrote Four Nocturnes for violin and piano as the second of his Night Music series, he was embarking on his most productive phase. Echoes of Bartók and Webern are frequent, though the finesse with which the composer elides between these apparent poles of dynamism and introspection is captivating – particularly when realized with the sensitivity and attentiveness of Colette Overdijk, in a performance to remind one that Crumb is too often overlooked as part of a decade (the 1920s) with more than its share of compositional mastery.

Next came two piano pieces by Julian Anderson. Capriccio is a heartfelt yet never turgid memorial to Steven Stuckey, its balance between precision and playfulness a reminder that the latter composer was a leading authority on the music of Lutosławski. More elaborate is Sensation, a cycle of six movements playable either separately or in various combinations – of which Nuits ‘‘presents the sounds and perfumes of the night’’ in music by turns evocative and ominous, all the while encompassing the extent of the keyboard to an enticing degree.

Finally, to Jia Guoping and a welcome revival for Ripples in Spacetime II. Drawing upon cosmic waves as emitted from a pulsar, the piece evolves in terms as emphasise the timbral diversity of its instrumental quartet. Its pitches derived from the acronym CHINA FAST (a radio telescope), its playing techniques evoke traditional Chinese instruments over the course of a capricious interplay between those competing (and ultimately irreconcilable?) claims of innovation and tradition – making for an absorbing end to a thoughtfully planned programme.

Hopefully BCMG will return to this performance-space during the second half of this season (details of which are imminent). Next month sees a recital by the musicians of NEXT at the Centrala Gallery in the suburb of Digbeth, providing another change of scene and ambience.

Further information on future events can be found at the BCMG website

On Record – Poppy Ackroyd: Pause (One Little Independent Records)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Poppy Ackroyd’s fourth album could hardly be a more personal document. Written during the pandemic, it is a first-hand account of life being put on hold – but at the same time tells the story of the birth of her son. Often the newborn was asleep on the composer as she wrote at the piano, while other work was done in the rare free moments the new mother was allowed.

What’s the music like?

Ideal for this time of year. Although a piano album there are a lot of imaginative sounds and colours not normally associated with the instrument, as Ackroyd stretches its capabilities. Not content with using the conventional white and black keys, she leans into the piano to utilise the taut strings, creating effects like that of a harp or harpsichord.

Suspended, for instance, is performed with both hands inside the piano, using a mysterious tapping sound like someone knocking on the window. Meanwhile Muted was recorded using cloth to dampen the strings in the piano’s lower half. The resultant pinpricks of melody are rather beautiful. Pause itself is a combination of conventional sounds and the inner strings, the music effectively set for two instruments as it extends its icy tendrils.

Impulse uses a wider range of the keyboard, with an easily flowing discourse that suggests it was written with a white flash of inspiration, using simple but expressive figurations that become gradually more expansive. Release enjoys its freedom, showing how Ackroyd’s titles are accurate descriptions of what happens in the music.

Perhaps the most vivid imagery can be found on Murmurations, which captures the rediscovered love for nature a lot of us have felt in recent times. The swirly give and take is compelling to the listener, especially on headphones.

Does it all work?

It does. Ackroyd’s work as a pianist is completely free of any mannerisms or clichés. It is a purely instinctive and personal piece of work, which means it flows beautifully as an album.

Is it recommended?

It is. Pause is an accurate reflection of the emotions we all felt during the pandemic, but it is an ultimately positive piece of work, making the most of freedom where it has been allowed. Ackroyd gets the balance of natural piano work and manipulation just right, her instrument blessed with some lovely autumnal textures but also an intensely personal communication.

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On Record – The Limiñanas & Laurent Garnier: De Película (Because Music)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is the tale of a friendship, a musical spark and the concept album that came out of it. Laurent Garnier met Lionel and Marie Limiñana back in 2017, and the three bonded initially over Lionel’s ringtone, The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie.

They stayed in touch, hooking up to make an album following a 1960s’ couple on a road trip. We join the pair, Juliette and Saul, at the southern border of France, near Spain, and we pass – in the words of the trio – through ‘squalid brothels, third-rate dance clubs, ‘60s vintage caravans, smack, Roger Harth and Donald Cardwell productions, distortion and fuzz-pedal sound effects. Gilles Deleuze, Professor X and the preacher from ‘The Night of the Hunter’ are some of the characters that inhabit the world of this drama-inspired record’.

Initially Lionel included some electronic beats in the album, leaning towards Garnier’s long-established techno workings, but the Frenchman rejected these in favour of keeping the Spanish duo’s psychedelic sound at the front of the mix.

What’s the music like?

Prepare for some adrenalin-fueled highs as the music of De Película takes shape. The three musical protagonists have harnessed their love of Krautrock – and especially Can – to make a set of driving musical grooves that are by turns thrilling and mesmeric.

They express themselves through propulsive rhythms on tracks which often choose a single pitch as a bass and stick to it, creating a hypnotic groove for the listener. When pared with a spoken word narrative the music works really well. Je rentrais par le bois…definitely falls into this category with its slowly creeping melody and psychedelia, as does Juliette dans le caravane, which adopts a similar profile. Steeplechase speeds off into the distance, a thrilling rush of sound over a pulsating groove, If anything Que Calor! is even better, with the attitude of Edi Pistolas’ spoken word coursing through its veins.

Some of the slower rhythm tracks hark back to the big beat sound emanating from Brighton in the late 1990s, but ultimately go beyond that to ape the cavernous sound of late 1960s’ psychedelia . Tu tournes en boucle is one such example, while Juliette adds a smoky texture and atmospheric commentary.

Does it all work?

It does. De Película is a lot of fun, flexing its muscles but not wanting to be taken too seriously. It is easy to sense the fun Garnier and the Limiñanas had in each others’ company

Is it recommended?

Yes. Laurent Garnier’s fascinating musical evolution continues, but this collaboration reflects well on both sides, bringing out their strongest musical identities in music that gives its listener plenty of thrills and spills.

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In concert – ESO Digital Black History Concert – The Art of the Rag

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English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Joplin (arr. Schuller) Maple Leaf Rag (1899)
Europe (arr. Schuller) Castle House Rag (1914)
Blake (arr. Schuller) Charleston Rag (1917)
Morton Black Bottom Stomp (1925)
Joplin (arr. Schuller) The Entertainer (1902)

Recorded at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth on November 10th, 2020
First broadcast on October 28th, 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Although recorded just over a year ago, the English Symphony Orchestra’s Art of the Rag made an ideal contribution to the most recent Black History Month – focussing on music by four of the most influential practitioners of the dance-form that became known as Ragtime.

He might not actually have attained his 100th birthday, but Eubie Blake remains among the most versatile of those composers who straddled the (apparent) divide between ragtime and jazz – Charleston Rag typical in its harmonic sideslips and rhythmic syncopation confidently rendered here. His contribution to the promoting of Black musicians, furthering the American war-effort, and creating specifically African-American music has overshadowed James Reese Europe’s compositions – Castle House Rag conveying an ambivalent jollity which was surely intended. Because he lived long enough to perform and record extensively, Jelly Roll Morton has no equals in evolving a jazz idiom – Black Bottom Stomp effectively codifying what was merely a dance craze into a musical template which was to have far-reaching consequences.

Framing these items were the two most popular rags by Scott Joplin. Among his earliest such pieces, Maple Leaf Rag was a success immediately on publication, while The Entertainer had chalked up a plethora of arrangements even before the ragtime revival of the early 1970s, but neither secured financial success for their hapless composer. They certainly responded well to dextrous and attentive playing from the ESO, ably directed by Kenneth Woods and given the benefit – as were most of these pieces – of stylish arrangements by the late Gunther Schuller.

An enterprising selection such as more than fulfilled its purpose in promoting music whose familiarity need not detract from its innovative qualities. Perhaps the ESO could yet mount    a concert or even a staged presentation of Joplin’s magnum opus – the opera Treemonisha?

Further information on the ESO’s current season can be found at their website